5 The Boy Who Never Grew Up

by David Handler

  “Ah.”

  “Georgie just loves her,” she added, scooping him up out of his playpen. “Don’t you sweetie? Huh?” She nuzzled him and cooed at him playfully until he giggled with delight. Then she sat in a chair with him, cradling him in the crook of her arm. He had her porcelain blue eyes and blond hair. Otherwise, I thought he looked like Sydney Greenstreet. She looked up at Lamp and smiled. To me she said, “Is he okay?”

  The lieutenant was frozen there, staring, his mouth slightly open.

  “He’s fine. Just a huge fan of yours.” I raised my voice. “Exhale, Lieutenant. You’re turning blue.”

  He did, his chest heaving. “Lovely home you have here, Miss Brim,” he got out, weakly.

  “Why, thank you. Won’t you sit down?”

  We sat. Lulu gave Cassandra a disdainful sniff just to throw a scare into her, then curled up under me in the shade, immensely pleased with herself. Maria came back with our glasses and filled them with iced tea from the pitcher on the table. Then she retreated.

  Lamp drank deeply from his, recovering his composure. Both women watched him carefully. He put his glass down and looked at Pennyroyal, then at Cassandra. Then back at Pennyroyal. “You know, this would be a real good opportunity, Miss Brim,” he said, his voice firm and earnest.

  “For what, Lieutenant?” she asked.

  “For you to confess.”

  “Gawd!” shrieked Cassandra, goggle-eyed.

  “You’ll save all of us a lot of trouble. And the taxpayers a lot of their hard-earned money. I’ll get you in the end. You know it and I know it. So why don’t you just get it off of your ch-ch-chest. You’ll get a fair deal from me.”

  “Gawd, I don’t believe this!”

  Pennyroyal was silent. Her beautiful face gave away nothing.

  “We know you were at Abel Zorch’s house at around the time of the murders, Miss Brim,” he went on. “We have an eyewitness who can testify to that. So you may as well just—”

  “Johnny told you, didn’t he?” she said coolly.

  “He did,” Lamp affirmed. “He saw you. And I take it you saw him.”

  “You were really there?” cried Cassandra.

  “Yes,” Pennyroyal said quietly.

  “Why didn’t you step forward and tell us about this, Miss Brim?” Lamp inquired.

  Georgie wriggled a bit in her arms. She stroked him soothingly and leveled her innocent blue eyes at Lamp. “It would have been the right thing to do, Lieutenant,” she admitted. “I know that. Honest I do. But you already knew about Johnny being there. And I just … I didn’t want to get involved. I’ve had so much terrible publicity already. The last thing I need is more. You can understand that, can’t you?”

  Lamp pitched right over onto his back, four paws up in the air. “Oh, sure,” he said, a sickly grin on his face. “Sure thing. This business with the photos—it must be pretty awful for you.”

  “Pretty awful,” she agreed unhappily, rocking Georgie gently back and forth.

  “And I’m not accusing you or anything,” he said. “Heck no. I just want you to tell me what you know.”

  “Anything, Lieutenant,” she said. “I’ll tell you anything I can.”

  “Good.” He grinned at her some more, and kept on grinning until he turned to me helplessly and said, “Where was I?”

  “You were going to ask her what she was doing at Zorch’s,” I said.

  He nodded. “What were you?” he asked.

  “I’d been driving around,” she replied. “I was upset about everything, and I needed to think. I’ve already told Hoagy all of this.”

  Lamp looked at me with a pained expression.

  “It’s true, Lieutenant. She did.”

  “I wanted to talk to Abel about my pictures,” she continued. “Why he did it.”

  “You think Abel’s the one who leaked them?” I asked her.

  “I’m sure he was,” she replied. “I was planning to fire him because of it. I couldn’t take any more of his tactics. I tried calling him at his office earlier, only his secretary said he was in court. I think he may have been ducking me—he knew I was furious. Anyway, while I was driving around I decided to stop and see if he was home yet.”

  “What time was this?” asked Lamp.

  She considered this. “Sometime between five-thirty and a quarter to six, I think. I rang the bell at the gate. His houseboy told me Abel wasn’t home and he didn’t know when he would be. He didn’t invite me in to wait.”

  “I wonder why Kenji didn’t mention this to me?” mused Lamp aloud.

  “He probably didn’t think it was important,” she offered.

  “Still,” countered Lamp. “We are investigating his boss’s murder. You’d think he’d want to be more candid.”

  “No, you wouldn’t, Lieutenant,” she argued politely. “People like Kenji are trained to be discreet. They don’t volunteer information to anyone. Especially if they work for someone like Abel.”

  Lamp nodded, unconvinced. “Could be. He didn’t give us anything about Johnny either. We had to get that from the housekeeper across the street. Go on, Miss Brim.”

  “When I was backing away from the house, I noticed Johnny sitting there across the street on his motorcycle, looking so sad. Before I could pull over to say hello, he bolted. Took off like a scared little boy.”

  “Then what happened?” asked Lamp.

  “I drove around in the hills some more, like I told Hoagy. And that’s all there is to it, Lieutenant.” She leveled her blue eyes at him again. “Please believe me—it’s the truth.”

  Lamp cleared his throat. “That’s all there is?”

  “That’s all there is,” she swore.

  He put away his pad and pencil. “Okay, Miss Brim. I’m satisfied. For now. But if you remember anything else, please call me. Work with me, trust me. I can keep you out of the papers.”

  “Nobody can do that, Lieutenant,” she said bitterly.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he conceded, getting to his feet. “Sorry to bother you.”

  “It was no bother at all, Lieutenant. You’ve been very kind.”

  He blushed. “Nice meeting you, Miss Dee.”

  “Yeah, yeah, shewa,” said Cassandra. “Any time, honey.”

  “Coming, Hoagy?” asked Lamp.

  I stayed put. “I have some more questions, strictly book-related. If you don’t mind, Pennyroyal.”

  “Of course not. Stick around.” She stood up with Georgie. “But this does mean you have to babysit,” she said, plopping him down in my lap.

  “Oh, no, it doesn’t.”

  “Just while I show the Lieutenant out, Hoagy. Please?”

  Before I could mount a successful argument she went padding off toward the house with Lamp, asking him how long he’d been a cop and if he enjoyed it.

  Georgie squirmed around in my lap, gurgling, then nestled against my chest and gazed up at me with awe and wonder. And he hadn’t even read my novels yet. I asked him what he thought of the new Don DeLillo. He drooled in response. At least he had some taste. I offered him my linen handkerchief, which he clutched tightly in his tiny fist. Lulu watched all of this carefully, a noise coming from her throat that makes her sound like an asthmatic Hereford. This was her being jealous.

  “How’s Big Steve?” I asked Cassandra.

  “Fuck you,” she replied shortly.

  “Aren’t we the touchy one today.”

  “You’d be touchy, too, if ya had my morning.”

  “Having trouble with her?” I asked.

  “No shit. She’s such an appallingly sweet person. I can’t get her to say a single bad woid about anyone, especially Matthew. This is a goil’s woist nightmare, I’m telling ya.”

  Georgie began to doze. He seemed very relaxed. I guess he didn’t have a lot on his mind.

  “She’s already dished plenty in the newspapers,” I pointed out.

  “She says that all came from Zorch and she don’t wanna use it. I mean, hey, she’s gotta
dish. I just got our publisher on the phone to remind her of that. It’s a fight, I’m telling ya. I gotta push, push, push. But if I push her too hard, I swear she’ll pull out of the whole deal, leaving me high and dry. I’m getting bad vibes about her, I’m telling ya. I don’t think she’s tough enough to carry this off.” She took a gulp of her iced tea. “Oh, hey, I had an early breakfast with one of my pals at the Enquirer.”

  “And?”

  “Nuttin’. The negatives were the proverbial gift horse. Somebody just left ’em there under the office door in a plain envelope. They found ’em when they opened up for the day, about nine. They got no idea who it was—no name, no address, no note, no nuttin’. Whoever did it, it shewa wasn’t money they was after—none changed hands.”

  “I see. Well, thanks for checking.”

  “Hey, we’re in this together, like I keep telling ya.”

  “If we’re in this together then how about holding Georgie for a while?”

  But that wasn’t necessary. America’s cutest mom was already making her way back toward us around the pool, moving with loose-limbed, provocative grace in her bikini. She didn’t flounce. She didn’t preen. She was utterly natural. Most uncommon.

  She smiled at the sight of Georgie dozing there in my lap. “I think he likes you, Hoagy.”

  “No, he doesn’t.”

  “You seem very at home with a baby.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Amused, she lifted him up and laid him down gently in his playpen. Then she curled up in a chair with one bare, shapely leg under her. “Now, what is it you wanted to ask?”

  “Before we go any further,” Cassandra interjected, “I wanna go on record as saying I’m totally opposed to this.”

  Pennyroyal looked at her curiously. “Opposed to what, Cassie?”

  “Collaborating with the enemy,” she replied sharply.

  “What happened to ‘We’re in this together’?” I asked.

  “Whatever ya tell him,” she went on, ignoring me, “he’s gonna put in Matthew’s book. That defeats the whole point of what we’re trying to do here. Our publisher is not gonna like this, believe me.”

  “Fine,” said Pennyroyal, bristling. “I’ll give him his money back.”

  Cassandra panicked. “Whoa, honey, now let’s not lose our—”

  “I’m writing this book to set the record straight,” Pennyroyal said firmly. “That’s all I care about. If talking to Hoagy will help me do that, then I’ll talk to Hoagy. Is that understood?”

  “Yeah, yeah, shewa,” muttered Cassandra unhappily. “Dense I’m not.”

  Pennyroyal shook her head at her. “God, Cassie, you’re such a pit bull sometimes. Chill out. And why don’t you sit out in the sun for a few minutes? You’re pale as a ghost.”

  “I boin.”

  “I have sun block,” Pennyroyal offered.

  “It makes me break out,” Cassandra said stubbornly.

  Pennyroyal rolled her eyes. “Would you rather not sit in on this?”

  “Just try and get me out of here,” Cassandra dared her.

  “Okay, okay, fine,” she said wearily.

  “Besides, this is a major privilege for me,” Cassandra added. “Getting to watch the master at woik. Where’s your tape recorder, huh?”

  “Didn’t bring it.”

  “Gawd, ya keep it all in your head? How?”

  “That’s no problem—it swells to meet any occasion.”

  “I’m in awe.”

  Pennyroyal poured us some more iced tea and told me to go ahead.

  I did. “You mentioned that Mrs. Wax doesn’t much care for you.”

  She nodded. “Not much.”

  “How come?”

  She sipped her tea. “I’m not completely sure. Bunny just always treated me like an intruder. From the second Matthew and I started going out.” She gazed out at her view of the ocean, her tousled blond hair drying in the breeze. A wisp of it fluttered across her eyes. She brushed it away. “He took me go-cart racing on our first date. A place out in Northridge called Malibu Grand Prix.”

  “He still goes there,” I said.

  “Does he?” Her eyes turned soft. She swallowed and reached for her cigarettes. “It took him forever to ask me out. He kept staring at me on the set. But he could barely talk to me, he was so painfully shy. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I was nobody and he was this world-famous director. … He actually had Johnny ask me if I’d go out with him. You know, like a junior high go-between. He was incredibly nervous that first night. It took him three or four dates before he started to relax.”

  “Yet you kept going out with him.”

  She showed me her dimples. “I thought he was cute. And sweet. And before I knew it, I was in love with him. It was all straight out of a storybook or an Archie comic. It was like being a kid again, innocent and happy and clean. Christ, the man didn’t even try to kiss me until we’d gone out five times. That sort of thing just doesn’t happen. Not to me.” She shook a cigarette out of the pack and lit it thoughtfully. “But, yeah, from the beginning Bunny didn’t approve. I guess she thought I wasn’t good enough for her precious little Matty.”

  “Because she knew you’d had an abortion?”

  Cassandra screamed. Big one. The birds flew for the trees. Lulu scurried for cover. Georgie woke up, wailing. “Gawd, Penny!” Cassandra cried in shock and fury. “Gaaaawd!”

  Pennyroyal’s eyes avoided her collaborator’s. “I was going to tell you about it, Cassie,” she said hastily. “I was, honest. I—I was working my way up to it, that’s all. I guess I just feel funny talking about it.”

  “How d’ya think I feel?” Cassandra demanded angrily. “Having to find out something like this from my bitterest rival?”

  “What happened to ‘colleague’?” I inquired, tugging at my ear.

  “I was going to tell you,” Pennyroyal insisted. “Now just cut me some slack, okay?” She stubbed out her cigarette and went over to Georgie and quieted him down. She seemed a good mother—calm, attentive, loving. “In answer to your question, Hoagy—yes, that didn’t help me with Bunny. She thought I was a tramp. The public, meanwhile, thought I was a goody-goody. I’m not either of those things, and never have been. I’m just me, Pennyroyal.”

  “That’s our title,” Cassandra said proudly.

  “Catchy.”

  “I’ve never slept around,” Pennyroyal said. “Not in high school, not now, not ever. I go out with one guy, and I give it my best. Until it runs its course. I always hope it won’t, but it always does. I don’t know, maybe it’s me …” She glanced down at Georgie. He was slipping back to sleep. She came back and sat down. “I was a typical Valley girl. I partied a little, smoked and drank a little. I went to Tart High. I was a cheerleader. Craig, my boyfriend—my only boyfriend—was a soccer player. We started having sex when I was fifteen. He was seventeen. We’d gone out for six months before we did. One night when my parents were out we got careless—which is to say, he told me not to worry, and I believed him.”

  “Shithead,” muttered Cassandra.

  “No, that’s not fair,” said Pennyroyal. “He stuck by me through the whole thing. He was a nice boy.”

  Cassandra shook her head in disgust. “See what I’m up against, Hoagy?”

  “My mom knew all about it,” Penny continued. “My dad still doesn’t know. He’ll freak out when he reads my book.”

  “And Craig? Whatever happened to him?”

  She smiled wistfully. “He went off to Berkeley. Dumped me for a college girl. I never heard from him again.”

  She reached for a tortoise-shell comb on the table and began to gently comb out her long, lustrous, golden hair. I watched her, remembering all those times I’d brushed out Merilee’s, brushed it until it shimmered in the flickering light of the candle beside our bed. I watched her. And I found her watching me back, her innocent blue eyes holding mine, weighing mine, inviting mine … “What makes them so special, Meat? …”

  �
��When I was hired to play Debbie Dale,” she went on, her voice low and throaty, “Shelley asked me straight out if I had any skeletons in my closet. I told him all about it. And about the photographs, too.”

  “This is cool,” said Cassandra, backing off. “This I know all about.”

  Penny set down the comb and reached for her iced tea. “I was working at the Gap in the Galleria Mall,” she recalled, sipping it. “Toy came in one day, real elegant and well tailored, and told me she was an agent who represented fashion models. She asked me if I’d ever considered doing any modeling myself. Hoagy, every teenaged girl in the world dreams of some woman coming up to her and asking her that question. She gave me her card and suggested I think it over. I didn’t have to for very long. I phoned her the next day. She seemed pleased to hear from me. For starters, she said I’d need to put together a book. She gave me the address of a photographer in Hollywood and told me to meet her there and to bring a bikini and two hundred dollars. That was my whole savings. But she said that’s how much a good set of professional shots cost. I didn’t tell my parents about it. I didn’t tell anyone …” She lit another cigarette. Her eyes were on the ocean now, her voice flat and unemotional. “He was a black man, the photographer. Very handsome and charming. He and Toy were lovers, which sort of surprised me. He kept telling me how pretty I was, but I was real tense. So he gave me some weed to relax me. The three of us smoked it together. He took some shots of me in my bathing suit. And then he wanted to take some shots of me out of my bathing suit. I freaked, naturally. Said no way. He got real pissed at me. Told Toy he was tired of dealing with amateurs. She explained to me that professional models all have to do full nude shots for their portfolios, like it or not. She was real nice about it. Even told me I could have my money back if I wasn’t into it. She was so nice I decided to go ahead and do it. My teeth were clenched the whole time. I felt like I was being X-rayed for some terrible lump at the doctor’s office. When it was over she hugged me and told me she’d call as soon as she had something for me. I went home and waited by the phone, positive I was going to be the next Christie Brinkley.” She laughed to herself sadly. “I was pretty naive.”

  “She didn’t call you?” I asked.